Scream
by Muffy Kastel
Summary: Seishirou realizes something about himself after he dies. -Post-Rainbow Bridge; Introspective.


**Scream**

_Seishirou realizes something about himself after he dies. –_Seishirou, Hokuto, Subaru, Setsuka, Sakura Tree; SeiSub.

* * *

Light shines in his eyes as he opens them and the sounds of the ocean fill his ears. He wasn't expecting this from the afterlife, or being stuck in the tree. Or at least, he assumes so. Subaru should have brought his body back to be buried, right…?

But that's not all. There's a young girl with short black hair cropped around her face staring back at him. Her green eyes aren't as dull as the familiar eyes of another, yet at the same time, he can't consider them to be as beautiful as her brother's. Hers are filled with optimism and they sparkle with excitement, something he questions as he lays down and watches her.

'_For what reason does she have to be excited to see me?'_ He wonders as he takes in her radiance with the sun shining behind her.

But before he could say her name, she leaves his line of sight.

Seishirou bolts up and the light from the sky is gone. Around him the world changes, no more soft grass on the floor that he was laying on or the mystical blue sky that surrounded that iridescent sun.

Everything is black, just like his maboroshi.

'_At least I know Subaru-kun brought me back to the tree,' _He thinks to himself. Because if Hokuto is here, then he must be in the tree now. There's no other answer, at least, he doesn't think so. Though he questions the sight before of the sun, the light, the grass, the sky, he doesn't dwell on them too much.

'_Must be an illusion,' _He reasons. The tree is playing tricks on him, he assumes.

Because, for all the years he's killed and stuffed people under the park of Ueno, he doesn't actually know what it's like inside the tree. And he's very aware the tree knows of this as well. Seishirou always liked to think the souls just got ripped apart, but the tree informed him one fateful day…

("They don't,"

"They don't what?" A young Seishirou asked suspiciously in his line of rapid-fire questioning.

"They don't disperse," The Sakura Tree responds. "They stay within me…and…"

"And what?" Seishirou pestered. He was already getting annoyed with this creature. It gave him no clear answers to what he questioned. He was young and new on the job, so he had a lot of questions for the tree he was killing for. His mother wouldn't tell him anything, always waved him off and said the tree would explain everything. But here he was, with a million questions, looking for a million answers and yet, receiving none.

He asked what happened to the souls of the people in the tree. He gave logical conclusions to what the sentient sakura tree _would_ and _must_ do to them. Instead, the tree was just being vague and illusive as always.

"They live again. They live within me," The Sakura Tree finally answers and Seishirou didn't think it was possible to want to hit the ever living hell out of a talking tree).

/…\\\

He runs in the darkness, looking for something, _anything_.

"Hokuto-chan!" He calls for her, because there's no one better to guide him in here other than her, who's been in here for nine years. And she had been the one to greet him, so she must be nearby.

And he's quickly proven to be right, as girlish giggles soon fill the air.

And he stops.

Because he sees her running ahead in a maroon long-shirt and blue skirt. She's far, far ahead of him, but he's still able to make out her figure in dark. It's strange really, that all around him is pitch black yet he can see so clearly. But that's not why he stopped chasing after her.

That voice is not Hokuto's.

It sounds like Hokuto's, and he was sure anyone who had known Hokuto in life could easily identify it as hers. Subaru himself might be convinced, but Seishirou knows better.

That's not her tone.

Hokuto didn't laugh with a whimsical, childlike sound. All breathy and eerie that could easily make someone feel like they were falling from the sky just by listening to it.

Seishirou swears under his breath, _'That damn tree!'_

It was messing with him! But he couldn't let Hokuto get away; he had to see where she was running off too, where she was _leading_ him. So he starts his chase again before he lets her out of his sight. Even if it wasn't her, he still had to see. He has nowhere else to go-

"_Hey, do you know why the Sumeragi's and the Sakurazuka's split apart?"_

Hokuto's uncanny voice fills the air and even though she's still running ahead, she has her head turned adjacent to look at him. He can't see her eyes, as her head hangs low and the raven-bangs get in the way. He doesn't know how to respond or what to say.

'_Hokuto-chan shouldn't know about this, about the family history…'_ Seishirou shakes his head. _'But this isn't Hokuto-chan…but then why? Why is the tree asking me this?'_

He wants to know, because he too asked the Sakura Tree the same question all those years ago, in the midst of wondering and curiosity. He asked the tree a lot of questions that would in fruition, would never be answered. Eventually, he gave up with the questions and tried to delve into research through his family history. There too, he found nothing. He found many records of spells, of family members, of the first assassination, but never anything specific on the tree.

He did have an inkling that it had to do something with the Sumeragi's, with their rivalry, but yet nothing concrete would be given as an answer.

He opens his mouth to shout, to question where is this, where's Hokuto and _why are you doing this_, but the voice speaks again.

"_Do you know where you come from?"_

Hokuto doesn't look at him anymore and she continues to run ahead, but her voice is loud.

"_Do you know why I'm here?"_

Seishirou shakes his head. Another question he recalls himself asking. '_Why? Why does the Sakura Tree exist?'_ He knew it had something to do with the balance, the spiritual balance of Japan's wellbeing. But something in him told him this tree existed long before then, long before Japan was even a thing.

'_How old are you, Tree-san?'_ He wants to yell his question but his mouth is firmly shut as he runs. Hokuto is getting farther and farther from him and he needs to catch up. It doesn't even look like she really is running from him, just running in place, but yet the distance between them grows.

"_Do you know who I am?" _Hokuto-no, _it_, questions, almost amusingly.

'_No! No I don't!'_

"_Do you know who you are?"_

It's the final question it poses before Hokuto disappears from his line of vision. In her stead, beautiful pink petals flow from her direction and he finds himself dashing across them as they litter the floor.

'_Sakura petals? But I'm already in the tree-?' _

He's about to stop and analyze the situation but then up ahead, he sees it. There's a faint light from above and shines on a familiar sight. A clearing, where the ground is starting to be rained upon with fluttering pink petals. Its source is the ancient tree that should be standing in Ueno Park.

'_The Sakura? But I'm-?' _He was already dead. He should be in the tree…unless he wasn't. He couldn't know for sure where he was. He just assumed that Subaru did the right thing. He could be somewhere else for all he'd known and this was the tree's way of getting him back. His soul belonged to it after all, and there was a price to be paid if Seishirou did not get trapped in the tree as he should have. It was probably going to yell at him for not telling Subaru everything about his new position.

He runs closer and stops a good few feet away from it. The sakura petals are rising steadily around it. He's sure if he stands here any longer, the petals would soon reach his knees. He looks up and sees…and sees…

Someone hanging on a low branch. A beautiful, stunning figure that he left behind in the world of the living.

Subaru lays stomach-down on a wide, thick branch of the tree that was outstretched. The young man had already been staring at him from the moment of his arrival. His sullen emerald eyes-no wait…

The branch he was sitting on hangs low and then moves more outward to Seishirou but not enough to reach him. Seishirou, realizing this, forces himself to shift through the now-thigh length sakura petals that fall swiftly from the tree. It doesn't take very long for Seishirou to reach him and for a moment the two just stare at each other, taking in each other's appearance. Subaru looks at him like he hasn't seen for eons. The younger man's long hair is pulled around them, tangled around the branches and Seishirou has to blink. '_No, wait, his hair was never-'_

"_Making the head of a rival clan our own head…my, how peculiar," _The face is Subaru's but the voice is…the voice is...

"K…kaa-san…?"

"_However, it's not like we're truly rivals after all,"_ an uncharacteristic giggle emerges and Seishirou is suddenly snapped back to reality. It's neither his mother nor Subaru talking.

"What is the meaning of this, Tree-san?" Seishirou inquires softly.

Subaru leans forward and Seishirou is tempted to rub his eyes as they getting blurry. The smell of sakura is intoxicating and while he was once able to bear it, now it's simply too strong for him. It makes the person in front him shift from Subaru to his mother, and the long, stringy hair slowly starts to droop from the branches as the figure inches closer.

"_Another old soul…we finally get to speak,"_ Setsuka looks at him with her golden eyes but it's another voice that speaks. Seishirou's voice was always deeper, but Subaru's had acquired a huskier tone over the years.

"_Another dragon…did you know in the beginning, there were only dragons?" _Sleek, shimmering raven hair and eternal mourning grassy eyes bore into his. But the voice is not his mother or Subaru, instead it retains the ambiguous quality of the Sakura Tree.

"The world…began with dragons, didn't it?" Seishirou murmurs more or less to himself. He recalls the old tales from his days of learning and studying the dark arts. The ancient myths from a land ever distant to him, the cradle of all civilization and life. Where humans only materialized after the dragons did.

'_Was _this_ how old the tree was?'_ But that's impossible. There was no way the tree was that old, especially if the cradle of all life was on the main land.

Subaru nods. _"And once more they have returned to land, in new flesh, to seek the new world that had moved on from them,"_

'_And what of the end of the world?' _Seishirou is tempted to ask but the branch lowers itself more till it's just above his head. And Setsuka slowly crawls down to reach him.

"_And _you_ have returned to _me," Subaru speaks with his mother's face. His pristine white arms slowly reaches out to him. _"My…my…"_

The sakura petals are up to Seishirou's torso and are steadily rising to his chest. Seishirou brings one of his arms up to the younger man, but the distance between them is still too great, but Seishirou cannot get closer at his length. It is up to Subaru to fill the gap between them.

"_You…the oldest…and me…the one after you…"_ The Sakura Tree's careless voice echo's from Subaru's mouth. _"You have returned to me, yet I cannot have you…"_ It's all Subaru now, it's all Seishirou wants to hear and he's so _close_-

"_Do you know what this makes us?"_ Subaru inquires.

"What…it…makes us?" Seishirou manages to say as his throat constricts as the fumes from the sakura make his mind go numb. The petals are up to chest and it won't be before long they reach his shoulders-

He extends his other arm out and Subaru's hands are mere centimeters from his own.

"It makes us…" Subaru whispers.

The sakura petals shutter around his body and he finds himself sinking-

"It makes us…" Setsuka murmurs.

No! They were so close! He could feel his fingertips touch Subaru's and the sea of petals shift in waves, causing him to lose his balance and drop-

"It makes us…" The Sakura Tree trails off as he cannot hear the rest of it's about to say; Seishirou submerges within the pink floral flood and Subaru makes no effort to grab him. Instead, Seishirou hears a mixture of childish cackles and sorrowful weeping as he drowns.

/…\\\

And again, light shines in his eyes as he opens them and the sounds of the ocean fill his ears.

And once more, a young girl with short black hair cropped around her face staring back at him. Her green eyes aren't as dull as the familiar eyes of another, yet at the same time, he can't consider them to be as beautiful as her brother's. Hers are filled with optimism and they sparkle with excitement as she realizes he's opened his eyes.

"Sei-chan! You're here!" Hokuto cheers and Seishirou could only watch as she gets up and stretches her arms out wide. "Welcome to the afterlife!"

She backs away and turns from him. "Now that you're here, we can go watch over Subaru together…ya know, seeing as how you left him alive and _totally_ went against my wishes! Like seriously, Sei-chan, what the hell!? At least you're stuck with me for eternity in here and I have forever to yell at you for it…though admittedly that sounds boring. It's been forever since I've had another person to talk to. I'm the only person in this place. It's so strange," Hokuto rambles and shakes her head.

Seishirou has a lot of questions to ask her that he can't bring himself to. He doesn't even want to get up. His body feels drained and the grassy ground is feeling rather nice, right about now…

Hokuto gives her signature princess laugh and he sees her run off.

"Come on, Sei-chan! Let's go watch Subaru!"

Seishirou opens his mouth to speak, to retort and tell her to wait, but instead he coughs.

He coughs up sakura petals.

Hokuto doesn't seem to notice as he hears her giddy laughter getting farther away from him. She probably thinks he's following in her joyous craze of finally being in contact with another human being for so long.

Seishirou forced his upper half up as he continues to get the sakura petals out of his throat. They paint the black suit he's wearing in pastel and before he can wipe them off, he feels a sensation burning into his back.

Turning around, there it is. The figure from before. And without the toxicity from the sakura, he could see the person clearly. It makes him laugh to think that what was once his own power had now become a hindrance; but his clamor only makes more sakura petals erupt from his throat. Draped in white, wrapped around their slim figure like a cloak and long raven black hair that wisps in the wind, it gradually dawns on Seishirou to who this person is. Why they looked like Subaru, why they reminded him of his mother, why they sounded like the Sakura Tree…

"_Return to me…"_ They whisper in a low, husky tone. They don't face Seishirou and instead look straight ahead. Seishirou follows their direction and is met by a large ocean. Looking down, it appears he's on a large ledge of grass; if he slid down the gravel, he would be at a beach. Seishirou glances back at the figure and sees that they're pointing straight ahead. _"You have returned to me…yet I cannot return to you…"_

Seishirou curses his throat for being clogged, because he wants to respond. He _knows_ who this person is but he is forced to listen.

"_As long as there is another me still above, then we can never be together…" _They say longingly.

And finally, their emerald eyes tear away from the vast ocean and stare into his own amber.

"Su…baru…" Seishirou manages to choke out; throat be damned.

"_You know what I'm talking about, don't you?"_

Seishirou shuts his eyes and he recalls an ancient past he should not have known. A world where the cities crumble, where the people failed to worship their creators, where the dragons went on a rampage and destroyed all. Where the sea rose and the sky collapsed, where nature encompassed everything again. Then the humans were born again and once more the cycle repeats.

'_The humans are born and ruin everything,' _he thinks bemused. Yet the people keep returning to the land because the dragons will it.

He opens his eyes. He knows.

"The sea…" More petals flutter from his mouth, "The sea of…tears…" He splutters as he gazes at the calm blue ocean.

"_You, the oldest…and me, the one born after you."_ They speak carefully. _"Together, we…"_ They shake their head and just for a glimpse, Seishirou can see every of part this person that would later make up the entity known as Subaru Sumeragi.

"_Do you know what the Sea of Tears doubles as?"_ They ask and Seishirou nods.

"The sea…the sea of…" The words die on his lips because he doesn't want to say it. It gives too much away as to who he is and what he's supposed to know. But he does know. He knows why he's here and not in the tree, why Hokuto is here, why he and Subaru lived as they did.

'_Human life is too cruel for dragons such as us,'_

Then, ever so distant, a feminine voice resounds.

"_Go, another one of us awaits for you,"_ This…other Subaru speaks so plainly, so dully, it makes Seishirou wonder if he's the true cause or if there's something else that makes the younger man talk so. _"When I arrive from the surface, then we will meet again,"_

Then the mystifying figure tilts their head and pulls the long cloak over their head, but it doesn't stop the wind from blowing their long raven locks from under it out in the open.

'_Just like mother…' _

"_Wait for him. Watch for him. Then we will be together again my dear…" _

"Sei-chan!"

Seishirou turns around to see Hokuto dashing right at him.

"There you are! I thought you were coming right behind me-UWAH!? Sei-chan, your mouth, your clothes! What's with all the pink? Are you trying to channel the tree here or something?"

Seishirou laughs clearly, it's as if nothing lay stuck in it anymore. "Sorry, Hokuto-chan. You know it doesn't hurt to try…though it appears it had some odd side-effects,"

Hokuto promptly punches his arm harshly, though Seishirou had to admit he felt very little.

"Oh, you!" She begins to tug on his arm and pull him to the west. "Come on! I found a great spot where we can watch over Subaru together! Let's go!"

He chuckles at her antics and her rambles about 'just how bad I'll make you feel for leaving my poor brother all alone,' but gives one last glance behind him. The figure no longer stands in the field but instead, is out in the middle of ocean, staring upwards at the sky and the faux sun.

Seishirou doesn't feel a need to ask Hokuto about them; he knows she can't see them like he can. It just wasn't possible for her to do so. She wasn't like him or Subaru, but she was important enough to end up in the center of life on Earth in her afterlife. An impressive feat for a human…though he has a feeling Hokuto's spirit has more in it than it's letting on.

'_Oh well, I'll figure it out when Subaru-kun arrives,' _because all will be answered then, no matter how long it takes. '_And then we'll see if humanity it worth living and if the cycle is to be repeated yet again.'_

Seishirou shakes his head. _'Deciding the fate of the world…since when have I ever cared about that?'_

Why care about a world that has ruined him so? Though, he wonders who Subaru will see when he ends up here. Perhaps himself and his father, if the younger man even knew the man who fathered him. He'll ask Hokuto about it later. They had all the time in the world now, after all.

He doesn't even turn back as the figure in the middle of the sea lets out an inhuman, blood-curdling shriek of longing at the sky.

* * *

A little interpretative piece to be taken how you like. This was inspired by the FGO fancomic, "Children of the Earth".

Thanks for reading!

-Sailor Rayquaza


End file.
